Our series on the theological virtues concludes with some thoughts about love.

St. Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians that “love” (caritas) is the greatest of the theological virtues (cf. 1 Cor. 13:13).

He makes an important distinction that helps our understanding of love as a theological virtue.

Christian love is central to Christ’s message in the Gospels.

The love of the greatest commandments, called “charity,” is to “love God above all things for His sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1822, cf. Mt. 22:37-40).

In other words, love as a theological virtue is to participate in God’s love for all of humanity, to will the good of others, and to reciprocate that love back to God.

Love in our lives

While that is sound doctrine, how does that look in our daily lives? What does it mean to be part of the Body of Christ, bound together in the Holy Spirit? How do I live a life of charity?

Jesus instructed his apostles at the Last Supper: “Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete” (Jn 15:9-11).

Our Lord establishes the logical linkage that ties the theological virtues together.

We conform our wills to the Divine Will (“abide in my love,” “keep my commandments”) so we may find satisfaction (“your joy may be complete”).

In the next verses, Jesus gives His new commandment: “love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  

There is, therefore, an order to how we are to live Christian charity:

1. “Abide in my love” — We remain in the love of Christ when we are filled with His divine life. This requires being grafted to Christ as a branch to a vine. This looks like faithfully participating in the Sacramental life where we encounter Christ, receive His grace, and are united with His Church.
2. “Keep my commandments” — Like the rich young man, Christ reaffirms the fruitfulness and validity of the moral life, living the virtues, lest we forget the way to happiness. The commandments also bind us to the love of God by putting Him first in daily prayer, whereby we have the graces necessary to love our neighbors for their own sake.
3. “Lay down one’s life” — Here we confront the most daunting challenge of the Christian adventure: We must put the needs of others before our own and embrace the grueling difficulty of the Cross. This can take on a variety of applications, but Christ gives us the neat list of Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.

Love from love

As Christians, we have to pattern our lives after the way that Jesus lays out.  

We can only love because He loved us first (1 Jn 4:19); our love for others can only flow from His love.

The New Commandment of love comes within the context of the Holy Eucharist.  

As Jesus is explaining the New Law, the Apostles are listening to Him while consuming His very body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Last Supper.  

Christ’s death the following day will be the greatest act of charity ever and serve as the template for sacramental love in the age of the Church.  

Holy Communion binds us together in holy love with Christ Himself, who then shows us how to transform the world by the Gospel of Love.

The first tier of society in which the love of God is shared is within the nuclear family, the domestic Church.  

Flowing from the graces of the Sacrament of Matrimony, the family is the most basic unit of the Church and a school of the Christian life: Forgiveness, cooperation, prayer, and, above all, love.  

In the quiet of domestic life, we hear the first proclamation of the Gospel and apply its precepts for the first time.

As parents, we speak on behalf of our children and assent to raising them in the faith at their Baptism.

Perhaps more importantly, we model to them their first and most lasting understanding of sacrificial love, the natural sense of love written into the chemistry of family.

This is the very sense of love children carry into adulthood as the model of the Father’s love, who chose domestic love to be the analogy of His love for all humanity.

The model of the family extends to the entire Church — first to the parishes, the second tier, proximate locality, and the family of families where we gather for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass under the care of the priests, our spiritual fathers.  

Here we gather around the altar, the great equalizer of love that welcomes every human person and offers the healing touch of God to reconcile us to Him and each other.  

Despite our differences, we trust in the unifying power of the Holy Spirit — the Spirit of Truth — and we yield our personal differences in docility to the transformative power of God’s love.

The love we share overflows from our homes and churches to flood the world with God’s grace. This is our missionary prerogative: To form and perfect our love in sacramental communion with God and the Church; to grow in sanctity through daily prayer and virtuous discipline; and to care for the world in sincerity, generosity, and mercy by word and deed.

Our love for creation and all human life must be deeply rooted in the love of God.  

This is the Gospel that transforms societies over to God.